Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has told the British Broadcasting Corporation he has not seen or had “sustained discussion” with ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua in about five months. Yar’Adua went to Saudi Arabia for treatment in November 2009 and despite returning home in February has still not been seen in public.

Jonathan gave no indication whether the president’s condition had improved. He said he had not seen the president’s doctor but said he had spoken to his wife three times. “I’ve not seen the doctor. I have on about three occasions had discussions with his wife,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

“And I’ve had discussions with some of the other aides. In terms of the last time we [Mr Jonathan and Mr Yar’Adua] really had sustained discussions, that was 26 November … I think so … yeah,” he said. Yar’Adua was flown to hospital in Saudi Arabia three days earlier, on 23 November. Jonathan said Mr Yar’Adua’s doctor had not tried to contact him. “He [the doctor] has not come to me. I don’t want to compel him,” said the acting president.

In his interview, Mr Jonathan also touched on clashes in Jos, where tensions between Muslims and Christians since the start of the year have left many dead. He promised to prosecute those behind text messages inciting the violence, which he said was ethnic, rather than religious. He explained that most of the indigenous population in Jos were Christians, while “some of the settlers not all” were Muslim. “So if anything touches a settler who is a Muslim, it will be interpreted as if they are attacking the Muslims,” he said.

“And if the settlers that are Muslims now touch the indigenous population that are Christians, it will be interpreted as the Christians are being attacked.” Jonathan thought the time for talking was over, and those responsible for committing crimes in Jos should be prosecuted. “Anybody that is remotely or directly linked up with the crisis should be prosecuted,” he said.

It would be recalled that Muslim and Christian clerics visited the ailing president recently. There was no definite report on the state of his health as the religious leaders concerned kept mute over the matter when they were asked for clarification by the press.

In what later turned out to be hoax, speculations were rife in Abuja about three weeks ago that Yar’Adua would make his first public appearance during the Jumat service at the National Mosque.